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Dive Brief:

A new Retail Feedback Group study finds that Amazon and Walmart had the highest satisfaction rating for shoppers ordering groceries online, according to The Shelby Report. The two retail giants and conventional supermarkets were rated on a five-point scale across several key online grocery shopping attributes. Amazon scored highest with a 4.63 rating, followed by Walmart (4.41) and then traditional supermarkets (4.32).

“Clearly Amazon has effectively leveraged its deep roots in online retailing to inform their efforts in online grocery, leading to the strongest ‘highly satisfied’ marks found in our research,” RFG principal Brian Numainville said in a statement, according to The Shelby Report. “Walmart, although registering lower than Amazon on overall satisfaction and on several of the elements measured, also scored meaningfully higher than supermarkets/food stores in several areas core to their brand, including value, as well as identifying and receiving discounts.”

The study was based on a nationally representative sample of 760 respondents who shopped online for food and groceries in the last 30 days.

Dive Insight:

Conventional supermarkets and food stores have their work cut out to protect their turf as grocery spending increasingly moves online. While these traditional groceries race to get into the online grocery game, however, Walmart and Amazon are wrestling for dominance at the head of the pack.

Amazon beat out Walmart on numerous factors, most related to the online shopping process itself, including ease of checkout, delivery process/order pickup and navigation. Clearly, the retail giant is drawing from years of e-commerce experience to make online grocery work. The retail giant also outscored Walmart on item availability, and consumers' overall familiarity with the site could be another factor contributing to its overall high marks.

Walmart bested supermarkets on four key elements, among them the online checkout process and the availability of convenient delivery or pickup times. Having 1,000 pickup points throughout the country and testing automated pickup kiosks in-store certainly helps. But the attributes that stand out are those related to the retailer’s value proposition, which clearly is carrying over to its online offer. Compared with supermarkets, Walmart scored significantly higher on offering a good value for the money paid, as well as making it easy for online shoppers to identify sale prices and have those discounts applied at checkout.

Ease of use, convenience and time-saving aspects are tipping the scales in favor of grocery shopping online versus in-store, according to the Retail Feedback Group study. In contrast, physical store shopping still wins on product quality and freshness — a particularly important factor when buying fresh produce. Selection and customer service, in addition to other "soft" factors like making the customer feel valued, are also vital. Studies like this give brick-and-mortar stores clear objectives on where they need to invest time, attention and dollars to keep their shoppers from shifting to online competitors.

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